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Voices
Dean Dettloff
Dean Dettloff is America's Toronto correspondent and a junior member of the Institute for Christian Studies.
@deandettloff
Articles by Dean Dettloff
Royal North West Mounted Police operations in Winnipeg General Strike, 1919; turning left on William Street towards City Hall, shortly before firing into the crowd.
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Two 2019 strike anniversaries recall Christian role in Canada’s labor movement
Dean Dettloff
This year marks an opportunity for Canadian Protestants to remember a time when they were deeply embedded in the labor movement. It also marks a labor anniversary important for Catholics in Canada. In 1949, miners walked off the job in dangerous asbestos mines in Quebec.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, wave to supporters at the Palais des Congres in Montreal Oct. 22, 2019. Trudeau's Liberal Party won a majority in Canada’s national elections Oct. 21, ensuring him a second term. (CNS photo/Carlo Allegri, Reuters)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Are there opportunities for more dialogue after Canada’s divisive election?
Dean Dettloff
A minority government will make it more difficult for Trudeau’s Liberal Party to press its political agenda, but some see this as an opportunity for civic society actors: “Maybe this new situation loosens and opens things up for people to engage.”
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Canadian elections up for grabs as Trudeau deals with blackface controversy
Dean Dettloff
On Sept. 11, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the official start of Canada’s 2019 federal election campaign, beginning a 40-day countdown until Canadians get to cast their votes on Oct. 21.
Light streams into St. Gabriel’s Passionist Parish in Toronto. (Photo courtesy of Larkin Architect Limited)
FaithDispatches
How a ‘green’ church in Toronto teaches theology through design
Dean Dettloff
The daily light show at St. Gabriel's in Toronto is not just aesthetically moving, writes Dean Dettloff. It is part of a church design that reminds us of human dependence on the earth.
Bolivian President Evo Morales presents a gift to Pope Francis at the government palace in La Paz, Bolivia, July 8. The gift was a wooden hammer and sickle -- the symbol of communism -- with a figure of the crucified Christ. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano/Illustration: America Media)
FaithFeatures
The Catholic Case for Communism
Dean Dettloff
What Catholics (still) don’t understand about communism.
Sister Teresa Forcades. Photo by Emily Briggson.
Politics & SocietyDispatches
The radical Benedictine sister who fought for Catalan independence
Dean Dettloff
The tumult in Catalonia continues. Many Catalans wonder what the future holds for their community. Among them is a rabble-rousing Benedictine nun, Sister Teresa Forcades, one of the most recognizable voices within Catalonia’s independence movement.
Workers collect oil from a stream below the site of an oil pipeline break in 2016 in Wachapea, Peru. Catholic leaders are calling for governments to protect the territorial rights of indigenous people suffering eviction from their lands and pollution of their water because of mining and oil operations in the Amazon basin. (CNS photo/Barbara Fraser)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
Canadian Catholics skeptical new oversight office will stop mining exploitation abroad
Dean Dettloff
“Will this ombudsperson really be able to provide justice for a community in Guatemala, who has really experienced crimes, including rape, the forced displacement of their community, and murder?”

Canada’s former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould arrives to testify in front of the House of Commons Justice Committee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Feb. 27. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
As Trudeau fights to survive, resignation of A.G. distresses Indigenous people
Dean Dettloff
Ms. Wilson-Raybould resigned from her post in the cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Feb. 12 over what she called pressure to go easy on bribery and fraud charges against the Quebec-based multinational engineering firm SNC-Lavalin.
Officers of the Bolivarian National Guard clash with residents who cleared a barricaded border bridge attempting to bring humanitarian aid into the country, in Urena, Venezuela, near the border with Colombia, on Feb. 23. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
As tensions mount over aid delivery, is Canada undermining dialogue in Venezuela?
Dean Dettloff
Though not usually seen as a major player in global politics, Canada has taken a leadership role in the Lima Group, which aims to restore “constitutional democracy” in Venezuela.
Teachers and supporters hold signs in the rain during a rally on Jan. 14 in Los Angeles. Thousands of Los Angeles teachers went on strike for the first time in three decades after contract negotiations failed in the nation's second-largest school district. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
Politics & SocietyDispatches
What does a wave of U.S. and Canadian strikes say about the future of labor?
Dean Dettloff
Strikes have likewise been prominent in Canada’s southern neighbor over the last year. Teachers in West Virginia made national headlines when strikes across the state won higher wages from a Republican governor and legislature